Electrical railway signaling apparatus



(No Model.)

H. J. PALMER.

ELECTRICAL RAILWAY SIGNALING APPARATUS.

N0..399,155. Patented Mar. 5, 1889.

AVUHEVHUHTI WITNESSES:

UNITED STATES- PATENT @nrrcn.

HENRY .l. PALMER, OF BROOKLYN, NESV YORK.

ELECTRICAL RAILWAY SIGNALING APPARATUS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 399,155, dated March 5, 1889.

Application filed February 18, 1888. serial No. 265,061. (No model.)

To a who-Ht only concern:

Be it known that l, HENRY J. PALMER, a citi- Zen of the United States, residing at Brooklyn, in the county of Kinand State of New York,

have invented certain new and useful- Imi ceeding'section, the same locomotive will anprovements in Electric Railway Signaling Apparatus: and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of my invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which itappertains to make and use the same.

My invention has reference to improvcments in electric railway signals; and it consists, more especially, in providing a system which is adapted to give automatically an audible signal upon the locomotive, the giving of such a signal depending upon the condition of a circuit or series of circuits external to the cab or locomotive and connected with extra insulated conductors along therailwaytrack, with which brushes or other suit-able devices upon the locomotive make connection ger-signal, and the absence of any signal will I indicate the absence of danger along the line.

The element of safety in the use of my system is that the signal is arranged to be sounded when any one of the circuits along theline is open. This avoids the danger of a break in one of such circuits being overlooked, as such a break will, in the working of my system, be detected and serve to warn the engineer of some sort of trouble or danger, the exact nature of which can be determined afterward.

It is now generally agreed that the use of visual signals alone for givinginformation to an engineer is inadequate, and that it is necessary to provide such a signal as will attract the attention of the engineer under any of the conditions to which such an officer is liable to be exposed. For this reason Ihave provided an audible signal, which will be either a bell located in the cab of the locomotive or a whistle pitched to a shriller key than the ordinary locomotivewhistle. In practice I divide the track which is to be provided with my system and apparatus into sections and arrange in pairs between the rails of each section insulated conductors, to which electric circuits are joined. The arrangement is such that when a locomotive provided with my brush passes over the track it automatically opens the track or external circuits upon its own section, so that a train following imme diately behind it would be warned of danger. On passing to the next section, or some sue tomatically reclose the circuits which it has opened, and will therefore cause no signal upon a locomotive following at a proper distance. The result is that no two trains running in the same direction can approach each other nearer than the length of one, two, three, or more sections, according as the system may be arranged, without the engineer of the rear train being warned of danger. I may connect the terminals of one or more of the external circuits with one of the bolts of a draw-bridge, or with a switch, or a culvert, or any part of the road where there is a special reason to expect danger, in such a manner that when the structures are in their normal condition such external circuits shall be closed, and when the danger that is feared intervenes the circuit shall necessarily be broken. In such a case the occurrence of an accident whichwould endanger a train may be signaled to anysuitable distance from the location where the accident takes place, and the train may be stopped. Moreover, in a case of sudden accident, where it becomes necessary or desirable to signal an approaching train and where there is not time enough. for a fiagman to give such signal, I provide means whereby a signal can be sent by a manual rupture of one of the circuits connected with one pair of the conducting-rails.

I have illustrated my invention in the ac companying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a diagram of the circuit external to the locomotive and the track apparatus. Fig. 2 is adiagram forming, practically, a continuation of Fig. 1. 3 is a diagram of the circuits on the locomotive, giving details of the brushes and their connections. Fig. 4 is a detail, and Fig. 5 illustrates a circuit-closer which I may use in connection with systen'i.

Referring to Fig. l, A is rail \vaytrarh, and B O D E are different sections thereof, each section being provided at suitable intervals with conducting-rails (I, a, I) l), &c., arranged in pairs between the ordinary running-rails of the t 'ack. These conducting-rails are in-' sulatcd from each other. It will be seen that the rails a a form the terminals of a circuit which passes through armature 7. and front stop, 7;, and of an electro-magnet, K, while the rails 17 6 form the terminals of a circuit that is closed through an electro-magnet, L. The circuit of the magnet K passes, it will be observed, through themaguet M, opposite section I), to the conductor f, and in the other direction to the conductor f Passing to the conductors c c and d d, the connections are similar to those of the conductors just mentioned. These conductors bear the same relations to the magnets N O P that the conductors last described bear to the magnets K, L, and M. There are'similar connections also for the magnets Q and R, and also for the magnets S and '1, as shown in Fig. 2.

Now it is evident that if all the armatures are on the front stops of the magnets S K N Q R, &c., that all the circuits connected with the supplementary rails will be closed outside the cab of the locomotive. The circuits within the locomotive are illustrated in Fig. 3, U and V in that figure being the brushes which make contact with the conducting-rails already referred to. These brushes are pivoted in a frame,\V, which is secured to the bottom of the locomotive by any suitable means. The brushes are metallic and held in metallic heads, which are secured to non-conducting posts u i, being thus insulated from each other. On the top of the post a is secured a metallic head, X, which is cut away centrally, the cut-away portion being filled with insulating material on which a spring, Y, rests when the brush-post is in a vertical position. The posts assume this position when free, being held there by the springs u U. \Vhen the'brushes come into contact with the conducting-rails, the posts are tilted, and at that time the spring Y comes into contact with the metallic portion of the head X. 4

Such is the mechanical construction of the brushes and the parts immediately connected therewith. The circuits run from the brushes to the battery Z on the locomotive, the circuit from one brush passing through an electro-niagnet, 0. The circuit from. the head X passes to one pole of the same battery through an electro-magnet, 1), while the cir cuit from the spring Y passes to the other pole of the battery through the armature 0' and the back stop, 0 of the magnet 0. The hell (1 is joined on one side to the battery and on the other to the front stop of the magnet- P, whose armature is joined to the other pole of the battery.

The operation of the parts described is as follows: Suppose a train to be moving toward the left in Fig. with a locomotive having applied to it the apparatus shown in Fig. 3, when the brushes come into contact with a and a, if the external circuit is closed in the manner indicated in Fig. 1, a circuit will be 0, causing that magnet to be energized so as to attract its armature. This action serves to break connection between 0 and 0 Accordingly, when the head X is moved .over into contact with spring Y the circuit of which those parts form terminals is broken at 0 0 and no connection takes place at magnet 1]. It being evident that the energization of the said magnet p is what closes the bellcircuit for sounding a signal, it is thus also evident that no signal will be sent in the conapparatus on proceeding farther along the section until it comes, for example, to the position where its brushes are in contact with b I), does break the circuit running from a a by energizing the magnet L and tilting the armature between L and ,K over to the side of L. Therefore, if a following engine comes along before the first has left section A, it will find the external circuit first described open, and will receive a warning of danger. The same thing happens at every section. lVhen, however, the train has gone far enough beyond the point where it opened the original circuitto be out of dangerous proximity to a train coming behind it, it closes the external circuit through the magnet K, and

restores the circuit, so that a train coming for example, might be connected to a bolt of a draw-bridge or to a culvert or other railway structure in such a manner that when the bolt was withdrawn or the culvert broken the circuit might also be ruptured and a warning of danger thus given.

In place of the bell 'q, I may put a whistle of shriller tone than the ordinary railwaywhistle, in which case the circuit controlling the whistle should normally be kept closed and the movement of the armature of magnet P should open the said circuit and release a valve to allow the whistle to blow. This, however, is a matter of detail. In this case the spring Y would normally rest on conducting material.

In Fig. 4 I show a pair of conducting-rails, a a mounted upon a common insulating support. This support may be of wood or any other good insulating material.

Fig. 5 shows a eircuit=closer having a special object. The device consists of a roller, I, mounted in a yoke which is attached to a suitable support, 971. A shaft, on, passes through a slot in this support and serves as the axis of two disks or rollers on opposite sides thereof. Each of these disks rests upon a spring, as 12:, one of these springs being a circuit-terminal located at a short distance "from the corresponding terminal, Z'. These terminals are connected, as will be seen, with the circuit of a local battery, .2, which is external to the locomotive, and which includes the magnet Ii. There is the same arrangement in connection with the magnet O, M, and P, and so on. The object of this arrangement is to provide means whereby a tramp-engine which may come along unprovided with my locomotive apparatus may set adanger signal, so as to keep engineers on the look-out. The roller l is arranged in such aposition that it will necessarily be set by a passing engine and set the signals to danger.

The magnets at the left of the armatures in Fig. I may be regarded as danger-magnets, V

ondary circuit controlled by the said magnet while those at the right may be called safety magnets.

In place of the extra rails arranged in pairs, as I have described, I may insulate opposite rails of the ordinary track and utilize them in the same way.

Having now described my invention, what I claim is- 1. In an electric railway signaling system, track-terminals and a partial electric circuit i connected therewith, corresponding train-terminals and a partial. circuit connected therewith and passing to a battery on the train through an elect-ro magnet, in combination with a separate. circuit controlling a signaling apparatus through the armature and back stop of the said magnet, the said separate circuit being normally open between two points, but closed at those points when the contact devices on the train are upon the road-terminals, whereby, it the external circuit be found closed, a signal upon the locomotive will be prevented, and if found open a signal will be sounded, as and for the purpose set forth.

The combination,with conducting-rails along a railway-track, of corresponding contact devices upon a train, the said devices being attached to one or more movable or tilting supports, and a circuit-controller operated di rectly by the movement of said tilting sup ports to close a circuit upon the train, as and for the purpose set forth.

The combination, with the contactbrushes and the supporting-frame in which they are pivoted, of the battery Z, the partial circuit containing the magnet 0, and the secaud having as its terminals the head X and the spring'l, as and for the purpose set forth. In witness whereof I have hereunto signed. my name in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

HENRY .I. PALMER.

*itnesses:

aDoLrH KIENDL, G. H. STOCKBRIDGE. 

